


Que Sera, Sera

by StainedGlassDreams



Category: Wait Until Dark (1967)
Genre: 1960's, Origin Story, wait until dark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-09
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-07 23:14:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15230124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StainedGlassDreams/pseuds/StainedGlassDreams
Summary: The first shoes the boy ever had, he stole off the feet of a dead man in an alleyway, in 1953.





	1. Chapter 1

The first shoes the boy ever had, he stole off the feet of a dead man.

They were two sizes too small and he never told anyone, not a soul, he liked the way it felt. Wearing something that belonged to someone that was no longer there.  
In the boys mind, it gave him a power, something he had that wasn't his.  
To him, this was his first kill.  
\------------

The match hit the pack the way all worn packs do. "Damn this thing.", he says, cigarette dangling from his lips, still attempting to light the stupid thing. He finally get it, shaking the scent of the freshly burnt wick out, his friend sighing. "Get a new damn book, will ya Paulie? Christ."  
"Dis my good luck charm." It shut with a light thud, cardboard matches taped against the long ripped off sticks. "Did you know, these matches saved my life?" He continues. "I was picking up dinner for the old lady, right? And summthin tells me, 'Paulie, you should getta matchbook'. So I did, but the restaurant says they haven't refilled the dish so they gotta go in the back." Paulie inhales poison, the irony not lost on him as retells the story of how petroleum saved his life. "And cause of that? I avoided the cheap hit that idiot Joe put on me. So," he says, taking the worn book out again, "no, I like this pack just fucking fine, thank you."

Moments pass quietly as the coffee cups clink against the hardwood table, and the sports page in the other man's hands crinkle in his hand, and the radio in the background.  
The man forgets the thought he was gonna ask Paulie before he brought up the holy matchbook again, until he looks at the day's crossword puzzle clue: 'another word for odd'.  
"You see the new kid?"  
"How can ya miss the damn creep?"  
The new kid isn't new. He's been the bosses favorite for a few years now, but he's new because he's never been assigned to them. To be fair, they thought he was a ghost story in the Bronx. Something like the Soviets 'Baba Yaga'. So the fact this creep is real, fits the fucking part.  
"Especially those fake Lennon glasses of his. I don't like him, Jerry. Never did. Can't see what the boss thinks of him."  
Paulie at mention of this, leans in, as if the kid is in the walls or invisible to the eye. "....You heard he did the Gorbaccio whack?"  
Jerry seems to forget how to read his paper for a moment, as his remembers seeing that hit on the news. The whack was upper tier, as Gorbaccio was a big shot. Big mansion, big business, small dick. It was supposed to be a message. Leave it to the new kid.  
Garrotted with no evidence, what so fucking ever. The doors and windows were all locked, and the neighbors recall a maintenance man coming over but not one could remember his face, voice or company name. That's just how he was. The fuckin Boogeyman.  
"That was some shit." He replies. "Some damn shit."  
"What's the creep's name again? Doesn't even sound Ile his name."  
"It ain't." Jerry replies.  
"What's it?"  
"Roat. Just....Roat."


	2. Chapter 2

The cigar smoke is billowing over his face like a cloud. "No no, Dino, bring 'im in."  
The boy is escorted in without a problem, walking as if to the park. The boys don't miss it, Charlie especially curious as he's never seen someone this calm, this purposeful. As if this is exactly where he's wanted to be; his fingers twitch around his gun, though they said he searched him.  
"What's yer name, boy?"  
The boy shakes his head. "I don't have one."  
The boys around the poker table laugh, including Walt but Charlie doesn't.  
Walt gestures, another billow of cigar laden bliss coming out his nostrils. "Hear that? The boy without a name. And, what does dis boy, want?"  
"Tell 'em what you told me when you come in here, kid." Dino says.  
"I want to work for you."  
Walt's staring him down, like an interesting toy or a rather obnoxious dog from the races but Charlie is still watching. The kid is speaking every word, every syllable, an accent but almost hidden. After working inside with the Feds, he knows these types; coming in as if they had never existed. His eyes look for a moment at the kids fingers, as if trying to see if the bastard burned the tips off. But he's wearing gloves and his instincts have already answered the question .  
"You wanna work for me?"  
"Yes sir."  
"Sir? Nice ya got manners." Walt took another drag. "Listen kid. I like you. I like yer, yer spunk. I'll have Fred give ya some food, bring home to yer Mother. But I ain't gonna let you in."  
"What do I have to do?"  
Again, not a demand, or a whine. But calm. As if he just asked the fruit man down the street how much the apple cost.  
"What do you gotta do? Kid, there ain't nothing. Go home."  
"What do I have to do?"  
Walt is waving his hands off, gesturing Dino to take him down, before jokingly saying, "You wanna come in? Whack that sunovabitch Tommy Rhodendron. The little shit." as he goes back to cards.  
The boys grunt the kid off, some awkward jokes before getting back to the game but Charlie don't like him. Not a bit.

\----One week later----  
"Look, I wanna know!" Walt's pacing. "No, I don't fucking regret it, I wanna know who whacked him! ...IT AIN'T ONE OF MINE, I JUST TOLD YOU THAT, YOU PIECE OF SHI-"  
There's a knock, Charlie gets up to check as Walt continues talking with the Boston contact.  
"There's someone here who wanna see the boss."  
"Who the hell is it, Betts? I just told you we're bus-"  
"He says he killed Tommy."  
The world stops, Walt even hearing the hushed conversation.  
Charlie and Walt look at each other, that same state they've known since they was kids. "Let him up."  
Betts goes and vanishes down the stairwell.  
"I thought they couldn't prove someone killed him." Charlie said.  
"No. Told the press to say it was a suicide."  
"Cause that's what it looked like."  
"Yeah."  
"But it wasn't."  
"Fuck no."  
Charlie already knows who it is before the door opens. The same kid from the poker game last week, looking just as kempt as last time.  
"What the fuck is this."  
"He said he-"  
"Does he LOOK like he could fucki-"  
"I did what you asked."  
Walt steps out from behind his desk. "You did? A kid?"  
"I can tell you details you paid the cops to omit."  
"Go on. Say 'em."  
Again, Charlie knows it. "Windows and doors were locked from the inside. They found Tommy tied to the bed with his belt, cock out and a bottle of his favorite scotch to the right hand side. One black curtain left open, like he was checking around. Jerking off with his right hand."  
He almost swears, swears he sees the kid smirk. And yet, it's all the details, every single fucking one. Walt leans against the table, Betts looks, for the first fucking time, nauseous. They compose themselves, before Walt speaks. "....How."  
"Reconnaissance. No one looks at you when you look like everyone."  
That same quiet comes into the room. They can't let the kid out alive, but he killed Tommy. That wasn't any normal thing. The guy was a fucking brick house and an immoral shit. And yet. Yet, he felt eerie, letting a kid this good: in.  
So he asked the question, "Why?"  
"Because I wanna be part of something."  
"There's half a dozen other schmucks."  
"They wouldn't even let me in the door." He shook his head, gently. "Didn't offer me food, like you did. They got no respect for what I can offer."  
"And what's that?" Walt said.  
Again, the kid hid a smirk. "I got no name. So, I don't exist."  
\-------


	3. Chapter 3

The music is playing somewhere in the background. Bob Crosby- What's New. Decca Records, 1939. He pours some wine out into the glass, his fabric gloves cupping it by the bottom. The 1960's decor living room looks like one of those magazine catalogues. Rounded colored circles inside of circles and pretty orange dots. They built it like the inside of a playhouse, right in the city.

Roat walks over to the couch, and over to a woman slumped over as he takes her hand, angling the fingertips perfectly to simulate holding the goblet itself, red nails clinking against it. He holds it down, just enough pressure to exert fingerprints before he unceremoniously drops it, the hand falling limp onto the cushion.  
"Thank you, dear." Carpeted cushioned footfalls in too tight shoes as he makes his way to the man in front of her, slumped in lounge chair with a bullet hole under his chin. He empties the chamber save for two bullets before repeating the same process as he did to the woman but instead of the chalet, it's Joe's gun he found in the nighttable drawer.

He steps back for a moment, looking at the scene as if it's just a finished painting.  
This is the job. Mr. Pretty Decor, Joe, is skimming from the shares he's supposed to give to the boss. He's planning to run to Florida as soon as he's done with the Kittinger coke job down in Miami. Roat knows this because Mrs. Pretty Decor has been sleeping with Donnie for the past weeks and told him to try and plead with the boss. Donnie is dead in the bedroom.  
He was just told to whack them but then the police find a exterior motive, plant a rat, he has to whack them, it's a fucking mess. So why the fuck bother with all that, all that Hollywood nonsense when you can make sure it doesn't get tracked back?  
"You had the money, Joey-boy," He takes off the shoes, careful to put his socked feet into the cellophane covers he brought. "honestly, can't have afforded some better fuckin' shoes with that cash?" He tuts. "Fuckin' moron." Puts the shoes back on with rubber gloves. Donnie was over here, actually, as if fucking fate so the scene had to change.  
He looks at it through investigative eyes: Man poisons woman, kills man in a crime of passion, then himself. It's not supposed to be perfect because these things aren't. Unless you're him. If you leave little mistakes, it gets brushed over.

He even went so far as wearing Joe's socks so the only footprints the cops found would, surprise, be Joey's.  
He snaps off the rubber gloves, satisfied and leaving.


	4. Chapter 4

The boy's first job was in a pizza shop outside the alleyway he slept in. The old man who lived there used to be a clock repairman, so everything in his upstairs one bedroom reflected that. Everything in it's place; kempt and perfect. Everything had it's place and it was there that the boy learned being perfect did not mean cleanliness. It meant understanding how everything worked, so you'd know.  
He gave the boy shelter, let him sleep on the couch. Let him read his books, he allowed this street bound boy, 'a chance', he said. "You a runaway?"  
"No." He wasn't lying. Living in an orphanage isn't a home. It's temporary.  
"You got a family?"  
"No."  
"You got a name?"  
"N-"  
"I don't care if you do. Better I don't hear it, ya wanna know why?"  
"Why?"  
"Because if someone come looking for you, I don't gotta act stupid. Better to not have a name, kid." The man points to the window. "You see my sign? Whazit say?"  
"Pizza."  
"That's right. Not Angelo, not fucking Lou, not fucking Bobby fucking Smith. Just, pizza. You won't understand this yet, you just a kid. But believe me, the less people know ya, the better."

It was here the boy understood, he would dismiss the name given to him. He would have no name.  
That way, he wouldn't exist

"Now, c'mere. I'mma show you how to fold boxes, and tell time."


End file.
